“European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said on Tuesday she would no longer be able to finalize investigations into tax treatment for Apple, Starbucks, Fiat and Amazon in the second quarter as planned,” Foo Yun Chee reports for Reuters.

Vestager told lawmakers in the European Parliament:It is clear that obtaining information is both challenging and time consuming. We do not necessarily get the information the first time or the second time. Therefore we will not meet the first deadline to be done by the end of the second quarter. We will do our best… I will not give deadlines for the finalization of these cases.

MacDailyNews Take: In Apple’s case, it’s particularly “challenging and time consuming,” since the company simply followed the law when paying their taxes:

There was no special deal that we cut with Ireland. We simply followed the laws in the country over the 35 years that we have been in Ireland. If the question is, was there ever a ‘quid pro quo’ that we were trying to strike with the Irish government – that was never the case. We’ve always been very transparent with the Irish government that we wanted to be a good corporate citizen… If countries change the tax laws, we will abide by the new laws and we will pay taxes according to those laws. – Apple CFO Luca Maestri

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5 Comments

My belief from reading this statement by the EU is that they’re chasing their own tail, so to speak, and getting nowhere. There is no crime to find. But I expect some loon in the EU will get the same bug up their orifice and try, try again. 😛 This of course ends up as a total waste of EU tax payer’s money. *Irony*

Said this before if the politicians want to close loop holes for taxation then legislate for it. This goes for the US, the UK and the rest of Europe and the EU itself.
Don’t go blaming anyone else for the rules that have been allowed to go on for so long.
I personally believe corporations should pay fair taxes in the country that the revenue was obtained from. But until those countries close the loopholes then it is only their own damn fault.

As one who recognizes that corporate taxes result only in higher prices to pay those taxes – meaning that any corporate tax is just a hidden tax on consumers – I for one believe that taxing corporations is just a way for the politicians to hide how much they’re actually costing the taxpaying public. If the public realized how much hidden tax they are paying this way, you can bet there would be changes in Washington, state capitals and foreign capitals.